Blender not required

Rum has been swept up in the craft movement, and distillers are tinkering with wood aging and fancy cask conditioning to make all kinds of luxurious sipping options. Unlike scotch or bourbon, there are no strict rules for how to produce rum—yeast, water and molasses (or sugar cane juice) are fermented, distilled and aged—and the range is astonishing. In Toronto, a good place to start sampling is at Jen Agg’s Haitian party room, Rhum Corner, one of the first bars to seriously dig into the resurgence of rum (she offers more than 40 types). New on the scene is Miss Thing’s, a retro-cool ­Polynesian bar in Parkdale that ditches the kitschy tiki trappings. It’s not strictly a rum bar, but they pour a heck of a lot of it. Their umbrella cocktails are goofy fun, but we recommend a tasting flight for a serious epiphany. “Rums that are aged well are more like a fine cognac,” says Reed ­Pettit, who runs the bar. “You get all of the gingerbread flavour, and all the molasses, but without any of the alcoholic heat.” Once you nix the sugary rush of a mix, flavours like vanilla, banana, almond, boozy fruitcake, dark chocolate and even tobacco march forward.